One small step for man

1969 Apollo Program: Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the first humans to walk on its surface.

[From the vantage point of Australia, where this almanac is produced, Apollo 11 landed on this day, although it was still July 20 in some other parts of the world. In fact, in UT (Universal Time), it was July 21. This raises the conundrum: If we in Oz saw it on the 21st, did we see it before the Americans, Africans and Europeans, who saw it on the 20th, or after them? I’ll leave you to figure that one out, as it’s way too hard for your almanackist.]

What did Armstrong really say?
"That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

These are some of the most famous, and most eloquent, words ever uttered, indelibly engraved on the global consciousness by Neil Armstrong on that day in July 1969. And yet, if he said "… one small step for man", leaving out the indefinite article, the sentence doesn’t make much sense. What did he really say, and were his words scripted for him by PR suits at NASA ...

Wilson's Almanac Universe page (space news)

Tagged: usa, history, space, moon